Flicker
by Allicat9
Summary: Love, Loss, Memory, Beauty, Passion, Laughter, Life. One shots examining the lives of our favorite characters.
1. Love

It's past midnight when someone raps on the door.

"Gellert-I didn't expect to see you so late."

Gellert smiles and Albus feels like his heart accelerate.

"We have no time to sleep if we are going to change the world."

Albus smiles and moves aside to let Gellert in. As he closes the door, he smiles. He is sure that this must be love.

Page Break

Harry Potter is content. He floos home every night to a full house-warm and full of laughter.

He watches his sons play on the living room couch-he watches his wife feed their small daughter in her high chair while trying to finish her deadline. He closes his eyes and leans back in his chair. This is what they fought for.

Page Break

Lavender Brown loves dragons more than she's loved anything. She can't imagine having children, though she knows Charlie wants them. Children are small and innocent as easily breakable. She's wild and broken, with sharp edges that could easily hurt a small child.

She wouldn't be a good mother. But Charlie loves her and stays despite that.

Page Break

Remus is fifteen and thinks he must be in love. Sophie Bennett is the prettiest girl in their year,

and the kindest. When she looks at him, he thinks she feels the same way.

Page Break

"Daddy, daddy, tell me the story again."

"The one with the princess?"

"No! The one with the spiders! The really, really, big ones!"

Ron sighs and pulls his six year old daughter onto his lap.

What he wouldn't do for love.

Page Break

Dennis is more nervous than he's ever been in his life.

"Emma, will you marry me?"

Page Break

Seamus Finnegan does not love Lavender Brown anymore. Her face is no longer the same as the one he fell in love with. Who can blame him for that?

Sometimes he is sure he is a bad person.


	2. Loss

With her willowy frame, long black hair and large grey eyes, Ella Lupin is a _sight_.

She's smart and arrogant, and sometimes there is a flash of what some might call madness in her strange grey eyes.

_She's a Black_. Andromeda says and nods, as though that means anything to anyone anymore.

1

Lily Evan's wedding dress is beautiful, and Mary MacDonald makes sure to tell her so. After all, Mary reflects as she watches Lily walk down the aisle on her mother's arm (her father was dead, buried, gone), they were at war-she might not get another change to tell her.

1

Neville doesn't know what it's like to have parents.

You can't miss what you never had. His Great-Uncle says to him.

But he did have parents, he thinks. He does. They're just very different now.

So he thinks it's ok to miss them.

1

Ginny goes into Fred's room sometimes, just to stand.

1

The last thing that Sirius Black said to James Potter was:

"See you."

That's it. No hug. No prank. No handshake even. Sirius had just gotten up from dinner and hurried out the door. He'd been late for something that had seemed important.

He dwells on those words for thirteen years.

1

Minerva never got around to having children. She had wanted them, once. But then life got in the way as it usually does, and by the time she remembered her desire, it was too late.

She has a good life, she knows that. But sometimes she imagines a muggle man long dead at her door and a gaggle of children around her fire.


	3. Memory

Rose Evans remembers her husband's grandfather. A wrinkled old man with large green eyes that seemed to sparkle. He had an odd name, Yarrow Evans, and always had a tall tale to tell her.

"You know my mother's parents were witches." He said, a twinkle in his eye.

"Oh?"

"Yes, yes, very powerful witches." Yarrow nodded sagely, "They say magic runs in the blood; magic _remembers_."

Rose laughed and that was the end of it.

Nearly fifteen years later, when she opens the door to a woman in long black robes and a pointed hat, she wonders if there wasn't something to those tall tales after all.

2

Albus Potter cannot remember where he last had his book. He was sure he set it right down next to him, on the table.

Down the hall, James Potter giggles.

3

The school looks much different now. Neville walks up the steps to the Great Hall and laughs as a new batch of students brush past him, oblivious. There are still holes; he can feel them, even if they are not visible. The school will never be what it was…but maybe that's a good thing.

4

Lavender Brown remembers what it's like to be beautiful. She knows what she would be doing right now, if she wasn't disgusted by her own reflection. She can almost feel the expensive silks, the music, the handsome man on her arm. She can almost hear the whispers of jealous girls and the catcalls from drunken boys.

Lavender Brown remembers what it's like to be beautiful. Sometimes she thinks it would be easier if she didn't.

5

"Do I know you?"

"No."

"Are you sure…you look familiar."

"I am sure."

"Did we go to school together? Hogwarts, class of 1998?"

"Yes."

"Then I know you?"

"No."


	4. Beauty

Lily Evans is beautiful in a way that made James Potter's heart hurt.

Other girls have pretty faces. Other girls can hold his attention. But Lily Evans _captivates_ him.

It's not just her face (though sometimes she looks so beautiful James aches) but the way her mind works; how witty she is. She always seems to know the answers and never feels the need to show off. It's the way that she shepherds first years to their classes or helps a classmate on homework. It's the way that she laughs, wild and free, and the way she blushes when she thinks no one is looking.

It's the way she can get angry-zero to one hundred in a second. It's the way she insults him, harsh words that ring true. It's the way she hates, hates, lemons, and the way she insists that everything be in its proper place.

Lily Evans is beautiful in a way that makes James Potter love her. And it scares him.

2

_Nymphadora isn't like Emily_. Remus Lupin thinks as he watches his wife scrape off her chipped, black nail polish. He tried not to often think of his first schoolboy love, dead and gone. But Dora coming into his life makes him think about her again. The two women weren't very much like each other at all.

Emily was beautiful in a demure, conventional way. Dora isn't demure or conventional in the slightest. Emily let him have time alone. He could go full days without seeing her. Dora doesn't know the meaning of personal space.

But Dora doesn't cry at the drop of a hat. Dora doesn't look at him in horror every time the full moon draws near. Dora makes him talk about the things that upset him. Dora makes him believe that his life is worth living-that there is a future worth having.

Dora isn't like Emily. And Remus Lupin is glad.

3

Peter thinks that Bellatrix Lestrange is beautiful. He's terrified of her, but he thinks she's beautiful none the less. He doesn't love her-he's not stupid- but she has the kind of beauty that always seemed to attract him.

He liked power. He liked dark eyes that flashed. He liked standing close to the fire without getting burned. He liked watching the flames destroy everything in their path.

4

Marlene has blue eyes that shine like the mid-day sky.

That thought comes to Sirius randomly one afternoon, as he and Marlene sit side-by-side at the lake. Not one for waxing poetic, the thought surprises him.

But when Marlene wraps one hand around his, casually, like she's trying not to startle him, Sirius lets it go, tilts his face to the sun, and says nothing.


End file.
